In 2020, award-winning British MVNO giffgaff decided to go all-in on the public cloud with AWS. The bold move sped its software release process by 1000x, allowing it to focus on what matters: its members. Now the company is an all-star player in customer service and cloud innovation. 

In this episode, giffgaff’s Chief Operating and Technology Officer Steve McDonald shares the inside story about how the courageous move happened, the challenges giffgaff faced along the way, and lessons learned that other telcos should know. Click play to hear our conversation about: 

• How technical debt was strangling the business [02:20];
• How long it took to see release success and code improving [07:37];
• What prompted giffgaff to speed its move to AWS [09:18];
• What it did reel in cloud costs [12:17]; and
• What Steve would do differently if he did it all over again [15:35].

Listen now by clicking play above or subscribe through your favorite podcast platform—see the links in the right column above. You can find the transcript for this episode here.

Links and Resources

• Learn more about giffgaff.
• Watch my talk from MWC23’s MVNO Summit, SUPERCHARGE your MVNO with personalization. I feature giffgaff’s journey to the public cloud prominently.
• Keep up with the company’s IT evolution on its tech blog.
• Read the 2020 announcement about giffgaff’s plan to go all-in on the public cloud with AWS.
• Read how pundits said the move was a bad idea. Boy, were they wrong!
• Get blown away by the performance of Yunchan Lim, the 2022 Cliburn gold medalist, audience award winner, and winner of the award for best performance of a new work
• Steve McDonald loves Chopin. You know which piano piece I can’t resist? Linus and Lucy by Vince Guaraldi, better known as The Peanuts Song. Which character are you in this clip? I’ve always identified with the twin dancing near Pigpen.

Wanna talk public cloud? Telco execs, set up a meeting with our team to learn how to tap the immense business value it can bring.

Follow DR

• Have an idea for a Telco in 20 podcast guest or topic? Send it in!
• Want to sponsor a podcast? Let us know
• Follow Telco in 20 on Twitter @TelcoIn20
• Follow DR on Twitter @TelcoDR

The Telco in 20 podcast won a 2022 Platinum MarComm Award, a 2022 Gold Hermes Award, and was recognized as a Forrester Top 100 Channel Podcast and Feedspot Top 10 Telecom Podcast.  If you enjoy the podcast, would you leave us a short review? It takes you seconds to do in your app and it really makes a difference in helping to convince hard-to-get guests. And I love reading your feedback and reviews!

This week’s guest

About Steve McDonald

Steve McDonald is Chief Operating and Technology Officer at giffgaff. Having joined the company in 2017, he is driving significant change and innovation throughout the company. In 2020, he led the network’s milestone move as the first MVNO in Europe to move to Amazon Web Services. He is a motivational and inspirational leader, known for building high performing, agile teams. He uses technology to meet business ambitions by engaging teams across all verticals to apply cutting edge software solutions. Before giffgaff, Steve spearheaded the software development at major brands including Tesco, Sage Pay, and Deutsche Bank.

Podcast Credits

• Executive Producer and Host: Danielle Royston, TelcoDR
• Senior Producer: Lindsay Grubb, TillCo Media
• Editor/Marketing: Alisa Jenkins, Springboard Marketing
• Editing: Andrew Condell
• Associate Producer: Kriselda Dionisio
• Music: Dyami Wilson